David Bowie – The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from mars (1972)

The next 5 (or maybe 10) albums will be picked by random number generator.

Ziggy Stardust was an alter ego of David Bowie, his stage persona. His fifth album released in 1972 named „The rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars, telling Ziggy Stardust story. It was recorded from 7th september 1971 to 4th february 1972 in the Trident studios in London.

3 songs of the album were released as single: Starman, Rock n Roll suicide, Suffragette city. It is the first Bowie album with an appealing cover. Because it´s a concept album I will go through every song.

5 years is a very depressed song going atmospheric with the strings and the piano. It´s about the end of the world in 5 years.

Soul love is about different kinds of love and the people ignore what will happen. Its very nice when the e-guitar inserts and intensify the music. In one part you have a pretty cool jazzsax.

Moonage daydream introduces Ziggy to the story and his destiny to become a rock n roll star. The solo in this song just sounds like crazy alarmsirens.

Starman is about Ziggys dream of an alien lifeform that will come and rescue the earth, but only if the people are cautious. The refrain of this is so fucking catchy, the end riff at the end is pure rock n roll.

It ain´t easy is a cover of a Ron Davies song about the problems to get a rock n roll star.

Lady stardust is the perfect transition from the a to b side and it´s about a fan who see Ziggy and his band playing but also be laughed at for wearing makeup.

Star starts with an adapted form of the intro of Pinball Wizard by „The Who“, it´s about Ziggys dream of becoming a rock star and the love and peace he will bring to the humanity.

Hang on to yourself describes how the band looses the groundedness,

Ziggy stardust is from the perspective of one of the band members and narrated how the sucess changes Ziggy who also dissolves the band without warning.

Suffragette city is an hommage to the beach boys and also to velvet underground, telling how Ziggy ignores the advices of his friends.

Rock n roll suicide embrace the whole musical mood of the album. It´s about Ziggys end as a broken star. And it ends much to abrupt, I was so shooked I had to listen to the album again.

The riffs, the cachyness of the album, the spacy sound and the diversity in the mood of the songs makes this album just perfect. Did I mention that I listen to it twice?